WP Maintenance Service (NZ)

WordPress is by far the most popular content management system (CMS) in use today. An estimated 72,400,000 websites are powered by WordPress, that’s well over 20% of all websites!

Its strength lies in its flexibility, ease of use and the availability of literally thousands of off-the-shelf themes (templates) and ‘plugins’. Plugins are available to meet virtually every requirement for an advanced and feature rich website without the need for custom development.

WordPress is constantly being improved with new features and functionality being added all the time. Several major upgrades are released each year with multiple minor updates in between.

Why so many updates?

All software contains bugs and vulnerabilities and WordPress is no exception. Indeed because of its popularity many so-called “experts” specifically target WordPress and take great pleasure in finding these security vulnerabilities. When they do they broadcast it all over the Internet for every hacker and cyber-criminal to exploit. Web servers are constantly being probed by ‘robots’ looking for these vulnerabilities and if found, will quickly take advantage of them. This can result in the site being hacked, used as a phishing site, injected with viruses and/or Trojans, diverting traffic to illicit sites, hijacking payments, etc.

As soon as a vulnerability is discovered in the core WordPress code, a fix is released within hours in the form of an update. Similarly, when discovered that a plugin or theme contains a vulnerability, the developer will usually release an updated version very quickly with a fix.

It is therefore essential that WordPress itself and all plugins

and themes are kept up to date at all times.

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Fortunately WordPress makes it relatively easy to update both WordPress itself and plugins by notifying you via the Admin Dashboard when updates are available. We strongly recommend logging into your website dashboard at least once a week to perform any updates that are available.

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There are however two provisos:

Before carrying out an update, especially to WordPress itself, make sure that you take a backup of the site (files & database!). Although updates usually occur without incident, occasionally upgrading can cause problems requiring that the site be restored from a backup.

Bug fixes and security updates should be applied straight away but it is NOT always a good idea to upgrade major functionality upgrades as soon as they become available. The reason for this is simply that new functionality and features means new bugs (and often new vulnerabilities too) so it is usually worth waiting for the first maintenance release after a major upgrade before doing the update to allow for these bugs to be addressed. It also gives time for plugin developers to update their plugins as sometimes plugins will not be compatible with new versions of WordPress and if you upgrade too soon the plugin might simply stop working.

Regular maintenance is absolutely essential

to keep your website running smoothly.

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To keep your website performing at its very best there are some other maintenance tasks that should be carried out regularly including:

Optimisation of the database

Removal of Spam comments

Removal of old post revisions

Doing this weekly will keep the database compact and defragmented so that any requests to the database are performed faster, thereby improving site speed and performance.

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Ezy-Sites are pleased to announce the introduction of a comprehensive update service for a very affordable, low monthly fee. The service provides everything you need to keep your website safe and secure with none of the hassle of doing it yourself.

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The WordPress maintenance service includes:

Daily backups of your WordPress website including files and database*

Same day patching of any newly discovered security vulnerabilities

Weekly maintenance upgrade of any new versions of WordPress, plugins and themes**

Weekly database optimisation for optimal performance

Weekly removal of Spam comments

Additional benefits include:

Your website can be completely restored should an issue occur during upgrade or if the site is hacked, pages accidentally deleted or for any other reason

The database, a single file, a folder or the entire site can be restored in the event of an accidental deletion or corruption

+ FREE when you order by September 27th, 2017

FREE Security scan of your site to check for the presence of malware, malicious scripts, suspicious redirections & anomalies and check if the site is blacklisted

FREE Removal of inactive plugins and themes (even if inactive vulnerabilities can still be exploited)

FREE Installation of a suite of security plugins to help keep your website safe

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The WP Maintenance Service is available for any self-hosted WordPress website with full admin access

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And if disaster should strike you can rest assured that your website will be restored
and be back up and running in next to no time.

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** Backups for sites not hosted by Ezy-Sites will be made weekly before any updates are carried out.** The update service does not extend to premium plugins or themes where updates are not available on the WordPress repository. If provided, these can be updated manually but we reserve the right to make a small additional charge.